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Subject:RE: Nobody reviewed the manuals From:"Butler, Darren J CTR USAF AFMC 584 CBSS/GBHDB" <Darren -dot- Butler -dot- ctr -at- Robins -dot- af -dot- mil> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:24:42 -0400
Apparently, the government agencies in charge of over-site ignored many
of their own written policies and procedures on how to promptly and
effectively respond to these types of spills. The U.S. taxpayers have
spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last two administrations
developing these P&Ps along with purchasing equipment and training
personnel. Everyone wants to dump on BP, who certainly has much fault to
bear, but the purpose of that expensive Federal response plan was
address any major oil spill, no matter if the cause is corporate apathy,
hurricane, sabotage, operator error or little blue gremlins in SCUBA
gear.
When the much documented crisis came, what happened? Thumb twiddling,
followed by finger pointing, followed by hand wringing, followed by
table pounding, followed by fist shaking, and now we have the hand
slapping of state and local governments who are tired of waiting for the
Feds and want to take matters into their own hands before their
coastlines are covered in petroleum pudding.
You can bet that when this disaster is finally resolved, the same
bureaucrats who all sat on their hands will be applauding themselves on
the terrific job they did.
Hows-a-bout somebody grab that ga-zillion $$ Oil Spill Tech Manual
that's collecting dust in the basement at FEMA and start thumbing
through the pages. I'm sure a group of lowly tech writers worked very
hard on it while seeing precious little of the 400+ million that was
spent on the project.
"Plug the d -at- #% hole" indeed!
I say, Read The D -at- #% Manual!!!
-----Original Message-----
From:
techwr-l-bounces+darren -dot- butler -dot- ctr=robins -dot- af -dot- mil -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+darren -dot- butler -dot- ctr=robins -dot- af -dot- mil -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot-
com] On Behalf Of Dan Goldstein
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 1:07 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Nobody reviewed the manuals
It's also been reported that there were established procedures for
capping the exploratory well before moving the rig, and that those
procedures weren't followed. Even if you have the clearest, best-written
instructions in the world, you still need to make sure they're followed.
The company has to invest in writing and validating the instructions, of
course -- but also in training the employees and auditing subsequent
behavior. In my experience, the writing is the easiest part!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Al Geist
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:59 PM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Nobody reviewed the manuals
>
> I'm sure everyone by now has heard about the big oil spill
> going on in the Gulf or Mexico. Associate Press today
> announced that an analysis of BP's contingency plans show
> they were "riddled with omissions and glaring errors." It
> seems that the authors face what most of us in the field
> confront on a daily basis..everyone wants the manuals done by
> some impossible deadline, but nobody has anytime to review
> the material to see if it is relevant, accurate, or complete.
> If those documents are like some I've had to clean up, they
> are virtually useless because they were copied from previous
> documents, which were copies of older documents, which were
> copies... In management's eyes, this is good, economic use of
> resources. In the department heads eyes, it's a checkbox that
> is filled without having to take an engineer or programmer
> off some critical task. In the user's eyes, it means fumbling
> around to figure things out before the system crashes and
> management starts looking over your shoulder. Been fighting
> for better manuals for nearly 40 years and I will guarantee
> that there are more BP-type contingency plans out there. What
> management doesn't realize is that it cost a lot more to
> clean up the mess than it would to produce is relevant,
> accurate, and complete material in the first place. BP knows
> the consequences now..how many other companies (small or
> large) have had their eyes opened?
>
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